PrEP-activist health professionals launch initiative

“Cheers mate! We’ll take our health in our own hands.” With a cheer­ful­ly cheeky slo­gan, last week a new group of PrEP activists intro­duced them­selves. These ‘Dutch activist health pro­fes­sion­als’ go by the some­what mil­i­tant name PrEP Tac­ti­cal Unit (PTU).

Besides our com­mu­ni­ty effort PrEP­nu, there is now also a group of con­cerned activists from with­in the pub­lic health sec­tor.

A spokesper­son for the group, insist­ing on stay­ing anony­mous, let us know how four health care work­ers came to their ini­tia­tive: ‘Every week one of us has to face a new HIV patient, who would have want­ed to have access to PrEP. The gov­ern­ment has let them down. As long as the gov­ern­ment won’t pro­vide PrEP, we encour­age peo­ple to take their own respon­si­bil­i­ty. We tell them how they can do that, where they can go and the health pre­cau­tions they should exer­cise.’

On their web­site PTU.nu the group informs and advis­es peo­ple who decide to start tak­ing PrEP autonomous­ly. PTU is also active on Twit­ter.

Please don’t for­get to sign the PrEP­nu Peti­tion for afford­able legal PrEP in the Nether­lands